The Writer's Library
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
Twenty-three of today's living literary legends, including Donna Tartt, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Andrew Sean Greer, Laila Lalami, and Michael Chabon, reveal the books that made them think, brought them joy, and changed their lives in this intimate, moving, and insightful collection that celebrates the power of literature and reading to connect us all.
Before Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were readers. In this ebullient book, America’s favorite librarian Nancy Pearl and noted playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America's most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark.
Illustrated with beautiful line drawings, The Writer’s Library is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries, and bookstores of today’s favorite authors—the creative artists whose imagination and sublime talent make America's literary scene the wonderful, dynamic world it is. A love letter to books and a celebration of wordsmiths, The Writer’s Library is a treasure for anyone who has been moved by the written word.
The authors in The Writer’s Library are:
Russell Banks
TC Boyle
Michael Chabon
Susan Choi
Jennifer Egan
Dave Eggers
Louise Erdrich
Richard Ford
Laurie Frankel
Andrew Sean Greer
Jane Hirshfield
Siri Hustvedt
Charles Johnson
Laila Lalami
Jonathan Lethem
Donna Tartt
Madeline Miller
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Luis Alberto Urrea
Vendela Vida
Ayelet Waldman
Maaza Mengiste
Amor Towles
Reviews with the most likes.
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S THE WRITER'S LIBRARY ABOUT?
I'm just going to copy and paste from the Publisher's site here:
Before Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were readers. In this ebullient book, America's favorite librarian Nancy Pearl and noted-playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America's most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark.
The Writer's Library is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries, and bookstores of today's favorite authors—the creative artists whose imagination and sublime talent make America's literary scene the wonderful, dynamic world it is. A love letter to books and a celebration of wordsmiths, The Writer's Library is a treasure for anyone who has been moved by the written word.
THE WRITER'S LIBRARY
Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager interview a wide variety of America's best writers about the books that made them who they are.
I love to get suggestions about good books, and who better to suggest books than writers of good books?
This was a library copy, but I liked it so much that I decided to get my own copy of it.
From the interview with Amor Towles, in which he spoke about reading a book called Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? by Harold Bloom:
“Bloom's book had a big effect on me. I closed it thinking: I'm turning forty. If I live to eighty and read one book a month carefully—where I underline and reflect upon what I've read and write down my thoughts—that means I've got just 480 books left! Yet I had just spent a year reading a series of contemporary novels that didn't make a mark on me. So I decided that I had to do something different. I decided to focus on reading books that were so accomplished, so rich, you would benefit from reading them at the age of twenty and forty and sixty and eighty.”
